>> we'll see you back here tomorrow, stick right here for "the daily rundown" with mr. chuck todd. 21 days and counting until d day, default day and the partisan divide is wider than what it comes to raising the debt ceiling than it's ever been. and democrats insisting that some tax hikes have to be included before they vote for the cuts. plus, if it's tuesday, then there's voting somewhere and today the voting is -- all eyes on a special election in california's 36th u.s. house district. the howhere campaign ads are so outrageous we can't hair them. and the half brother of hamid karzai is assassinated with a

friend with a k-47. he was a key power broker in the fight with the taliban. we're live from kabul. it's tuesday, july 12th. let's get right to the first reads of the morning. we start with the deadlock. this afternoon the two sides are farther apart than they've ever been. they were farther apart yesterday when -- then they were even sunday and farther apart sunday then they were thursday. the question is whether the daily meetings are going to continue. the president said he's shooting for the biggest possible deal and asking if not now, when. listen. >> we think it's hard now. imagine how these guys are going to be thinking six months from now in the middle of election season when they are all up.

it's not going to get easier, it's going to get harder. we might as well do it now. pull off the band-aid. eat our peas. >> also in the room, eric cantor laid out what was agreed to in the biden talks, which is about $1.5 trillion in cuts, still nearly a trillion dollars short of the amount required to finance a debt deal through 2012. republicans said it needs to be dollar for dollar. the president says he will not go for anything less either. the president also said in the meeting that he's not willing to see programs for college students and seniors cut to pay for current tax rates, a point he made in the briefing room yesterday. >> i'm prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done. as long as that package was sufficiently progressive so that we weren't balancing the budget on the backs of middle class

families and working class families and we weren't letting hedge fund managers or authors of best selling books off the hook. >> right now there are no taxes on the table, even the loopholes appear to be on shaky ground, even though there was some support from eric cantor last week and democrats had only agreed to some of those cuts in the biden talks if they thought they were getting those loopholes. so when we say it's a stalemate, we really mean it could be a check mate on the stalemate. speaker boehner said yesterday on taxes his conference is not budging. >> listen, i agree with the president, we cannot allow our nation to default on our debt. but the american people will not accept and the house cannot pass a bill that raises taxes on job creators. >> yesterday the president acted as a handicapper of sorts talking about the tough politics boehner faces in his own party.

>> i do not see a path to a deal if they don't budge, period. i think speaker boehner has been very sincere about trying to do something big. i think he'd like to do something big. his politics within his caucus are very difficult. >> well, here's what he means. in a new poll, we see the complicated political caucus they are dealing with. the number of americans who are very concerned about default has ticked up seven points in the last two months. then it was just 35% believe not raising the limit and risking default was worse than raising it and potentially spurring more spending. now 42% see greater risk in a potential default, 47% are more concerned about lifting the limit but the gap has narrowed. that gets you talking about the education of the public in the last two months. look at the republican side. the folks who have been more engaged in this debate since the outset, the numbers have only hardened. 66% of republicans are more concerned with raising the debt

limit compared to 60% in may. that number rises to 75% among republicans who identify with the tea party. so this is the issue. and speaker boehner has said he would only raise the debt ceiling to -- by enough to get through the spring of 2013 if it was dollar for dollar in deficit reductions and you can't get there. that's the $2.4 trillion figure. one way out of this, if they don't want to touch the tax pledge would be to agree to say a trillion dollars in cuts where they really have agreed to, it wouldn't be easy but it wouldn't be that difficult getting to 1.5 is pretty difficult with the democrats. if they agreed to the trillion and got rid of their pledge for the one for one and raise the debt ceiling, white house would sign that deal tomorrow. problem is, they can't break that pledge. they've got their grover nor quist tax pledge. which pledge do they break if they think they have to make one of them? you would assume that would be

the pledge to the tea party in the debt ceiling. but you saw those numbers. that might actually be harder to break than the tax pledge. we'll see mitch mcconnell and they think the talks are all about fruitless. he may have a plan and unveil it this week. michele bachmann is the front-runner in the iowa caucuses but maybe she should be watching her back. a new poll included -- we showed you one yesterday with bachmann ahead. a second ballot, bachmann holds on to only 44% of her support. who grabbed most of it christie pulls in 13% with bachmann two points ahead of them. mitt romney leads that wide field with 18% of the vote and rick perry who is reportedly telephoned influential republicans in recent days is out with a video advertising the

august 6th summit of prayer and fasting that he's holding a houston's reliance stadium. >> with the economy in trouble and communities in crisis and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism. we need god's help. i'm calling on americans to pray and fast like jesus did. i hope you'll join me in houston on august 6th and take your place in reliance stadium. plans to be part of something bigger than texas. >> we know he won't make an announcement until after this national day of prayer he is holding in houston on august 6th. what takes place a week from august 6th. the straw poll on august 13th. we do know there's talk of a write-in and talks of way of messing around on the straw poll. keep an eye on that eight to ten days. it could be rick perry's coming

out party. as i've said, more debt talks are scheduled today but so far it's been one step forward and about 18 steps backwards. all right. we're between a rock and a hard place and know that your party has made pledges both on debt ceiling, 1 for 1, talks of raising the debt ceiling and on taxes. democrats have just as hardened of a position when it comes to deficit reduction. what's the path out of this? mitch mcconnell supposedly has a plan c. what can you tell me about that? >> we'll find out what the plan c is hopefully soon, chuck. there are a lot of things that could happen here. obviously the administration could come around to the view that we can solve this without raising taxes which is the view we would like to see them adopt. clearly you can do a short-term extension of this in order to allow us to work on a bigger deal. but you've mentioned a couple of realities. you have a lot of people elected in the last election,

particularly the house republicans who ran on cutting spending. they didn't come here to raise taxes and the notion that you can pass through the house of representatives some sort of debt limit increase that includes tax increases on our job -- is defying reality. the president has to come to grips with that if we want something done by the august 2nd deadline. >> is it out of touch to look at the common sense of this, the democratic president putting social security and medicare on the table to talk about that, agreeing to potentially $2.5 trillion in cuts in you give him -- throw in about a trillion dollars potentially in tax revenues, via simplified tax code, how is that not a win for your party and the conservative movement? i mean, correct me if i'm wrong, wasn't that what a lot of the campaign was about as well? >> there's a good argument to be made that tax reform is something that a lot of conservatives like to see

happen. i think though in the context of trying to do this in the debt limit it can be difficult to accomplish that. if the president were willing to say, okay, let's look at closing some tax loopholes in exchange for lowering rates, tax rates in the country, both in individuals and businesses, i think you would find support for that. but that's not what they are talking about doing. it comes down to the problem you're trying to solve. the republicans believe the problem we're trying to solve is a spending problem not a revenue problem. the administration continues to believe that somehow we should raise taxes in the middle of an economic down turn where you've got 9.2% unemployment. that's something that's a nonstarter up here. i think the president will have to acknowledge that and come to grips with the issue, if you want to get the issue solved, you've got to work on spending side of the equation. >> one of things -- i know you've actually tried to come up with the compromise and you get hit on a compromise when you compromise the democrats and i'm talking about the ethanol subsidies and a sort of plan that you worked with a

democratic colleague of minnesota. club for growth, a tactic known big time, a supporter of yours during your first senate race and club for growth, a conservative interest group is out with tv ads attacking other colleagues on the debt ceiling. i want to get your reaction. >> hatch voted to raise the debt limit five times in the last decade a lone. now with 14 trillion in debt, he'll soon vote on raising our debt limit even higher. after 35 long years, tell or rin hatch, no more debt. >> doesn't this make it harder for you, these interest groups, pledges you sign and promises you make to the special interest groups, make it harder for you to actually govern? you're seeing it firsthand yourself. >> i am on the issue identified that i'm working with but it's always true the outside groups on both sides will be involved in this. there's a lot of -- this is a high stakes debate.

a lot of consequences for the country and frankly for the global economy if we don't get this right. i expect you'll see a lot of folks on both sides campaigning vigorously to try to get their agenda through. that doesn't change i think f d fundamentally where the people are on the yish you. they perceive washington, d.c. spending too much. the president says we need to eat our peas that is so the president doesn't have to eat crow. added 35% to the debt and still looking at 9.2% unemployment. the issue here is spending and i think that most of those people around the country, particularly supporters of ours, believe that to be the case, which is why you're going to find it difficult i think to get taxes into this agenda to get something passed through the house and senate. >> but at the same time, let's -- you say hey he's got to look at the political reality of the house. the democratic party that runs the senate and has the white

house, you could argue, hey, they still run -- why isn't the political reality hitting home for republicans? they aren't going to get 100% of what they want here. >> i know, even speaker boehner would go for the big deal and i would love to see medicare and social security and teentitleme programs on table on this, but the president then -- you lose all of the democrats. it's very difficult to pull together -- not all of them but a good deal in the house. how do you pull together a coalition that gets you to 218 in the house? you can't do it with taxes and get republicans to vote for it. and if the democrats will take a hard line in the sand and say no entitlement reform it will be difficult to contemplate how you get to 218 even if you're trying to put democrats in play. this is a very difficult problem to solve. ultimately it will be solved on the spending time. >> is the front-runner in the

republican nomination, should he be talking about the debt limit talks. >> i assume at some point he will. he probably -- >> do you think he should be? >> i think he needs -- any candidate for national office will have to get out there on how they would propose solving this problem. i assume in due time that he will. this will come to a head. not there yet in the next three weeks i expect you'll hear from all of candidates for national office. >> senator john thune, member of the leadership south dakota. thanks for joining me this morning. >> thanks, chuck. >> if it's tuesday, somebody is voting somewhere and today that surprisingly competitive special election in a fairly democratic district house in los angeles. it features what may be the nastiest political ad i've seen. a we knew it would cause both parties pain but it's worse than we thought. nobody is happy on either side.

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well, if it's tuesday, somebody is voting somewhere. today in less than an hour voters in california head to the polls in a special election for the state's 36th congressional district. democrat janice hahn with a famous name is favored over

craig huey, after a red seat turned blue in upset new york last may republicans would love to take one back. dan sner from university of southern california and recovering political strategist, used to work on the republican side of the aisle. nice to see you, thanks for getting up early. >> thanks for having me, chuck, i appreciate it. >> i want to start, this ad got on the radar of a -- this campaign got on the radar of a lot of folks in washington because of what was an outrageous independent expenditure tv ad, probably as negative as we've ever seen. i'll show as much as i can here in a second. take a listen. >> in an insane effort to reduce gang violence, januaice hahn hid hard core members to be gang intervention specialists. she even helped them get out of jail so they could rape and kill

again. >> working with janice hahn. working with janice hahn. >> congress has enough gangsters. janice hahn, bad for l.a., bad for america. >> look, the ad tries to portray janice hahn as a stripper, as all of these racial and sexual overtones to it. it was denounced universely by left and right on this. that sort of put a bad taste in the mouth in a lot of voters in this race, did it not dan? >> it did exactly. it was an ugly spot and huey's campaign was forced to distance themselves from it also. i would offer you, chuck, that california when it comes to electoral politics tends to be let of an outlier and more of a forerunner. but probably a pretty good

predictor of what 2012 will look like on the television screen near you. >> especially in the unregulated portion of the campaign, the campaigns themselves may not run these ads, you're absolutely right. one of criticisms i've heard from democrats quietly is janice hahn has run an atrocious race. last time republicans won this district, janice hahn was the democratic nominee. >> i don't know that janice hahn has run an atrocious race but running a conventional campaign on an unconventional political landscape. it's a very angry ee lek to at but a special election taking place in the summer of an odd number year in an area not known for paying a lot of attention to politics. the turnout of this race will be extraordinarily low. if you held a special election on thanksgiving or new year's day, you could probably get to a lower turnout, other than this this is about as low as it gets.

>> talk to me about the jungle primary. you were active in the republican party back in the day when the california republican party was trying to grow. and now there are -- in this case and the way the jungle primary works the most conservative candidate is probably going to get through when they get into the top two and more moderate republican would have a good shot today, wouldn't they? >> the truth chuck is we don't know yet how the jungle primary is going to work. for your viewers what we have in california is rather than the traditional primary with the top republican and top democrat in the primary, automatically gone to the general election, the top two vote getters, no matter what their party go on. and the presumption in this election was in a heavily democratic seat like this district, there was an assumption that two democrats hahn and our secretary of state were going to go on to a general election with no republicans at all. to your point, the con seb tif

republican coraled enough vote to make the runoff and making an unexpectedly competitive race of it. >> it will be interesting to follow. most people expect hahn to win. she has a famous last name in the los angeles area but closer than the experts think, right, single digits? >> well, the yearly polls show the race in single digits which is a lot closer than party registration. if the republican does win here, it would be a big upset. but no bigger an upset than we saw in new york earlier this year or we saw in massachusetts in when scott brown was elected. it's worth keeping an eye on throughout the day. >> dan schnur, thanks for waking up early with me. >> thank you, chuck. >> special elections are special for a reason because you sometimes get very unique and special outcomes. all right, first we got today's trivia question. since 1832 there have only been two status quo presidential

elections. it means where every state with ten or more electoral votes stayed in the same red/blue column from the previous election. the answer and more is coming up on "the daily rundown." [ barks ] ♪ [ cat meows ] ♪ [ whistles ] ♪ [ cat meows ] ♪ [ ting! ] [ male announcer ] travelers can help you protect the things you care about and save money with multi-policy discounts.

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if that's the case, it would be a huge problem. things have turned around for the course of the day. it looks like the dow is down only nine points. in the last half hour it looked like it could go positive today. that's how chaotic things are. as people try to figure out what's happening, rumors are moving a lot of different news. futures were down by 168 points early this morning and then there was a rumor that the eu was stepping in and might actually be buying bonds from italy and spain and that helped stabilize things. the entire market turned around. this is affecting not only the stocks here and europe, it's affecting the dollar and euro, which traded as low as a 1.38 yesterday and today. it shows you how quickly things can change. it will be an interesting session to watch today. >> becky, thanks very much. i am up way too early if you ask. >> i watch you. >> afghan president hamid karzai's half-brother shot dead

in afghanistan. why it could be a major boost to the taliban and huge blow to the united states and nato. plus, nbc's exclusive interview with outgoing u.s. ambassador and blunt speaker sometimes, carl eikenberry. a secret videotape raising new questions about michele bachmann's husband. doctor toldm is best absorbed in small continuous amounts. only one calcium supplement does that in one daily dose. new citracal slow release... continuously releases calcium plus d for the efficient absorption my body needs. citracal.

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opponent taliban dan. friends and family and dignity tearies are gathering to remember betty ford at the service in palm dessert, california. first lady michelle obama will be there along with secretar of state hillary clinton and roselyn carter who will deliver a eulogy. amazon.com is waging war against a new california law that requires sales tax from its customers. the company filed a petition to put the issue up for a vote next year. a move that is sure to spark a battle. referendums in california, all that happens is political consult aenlts make money. intriguing details about the plot to kauch osama bin laden. the cia had a fake vaccine program. new word from the cia on whether a bin laden dna sample was ever

obtained. in afghanistan, president karzai is feeling the i am pakt of the violence in his country firsthand. his brother ahmad wali karzai was murdered in his home in kandahar. the taliban quickly took responsibility claiming they hired a hit man to carry out the killing. this was just a sledge hammer to president karzai. what happened and was it the taliban? >> reporter: well, to be honest with you, not only was it a sledge hammer to president karzai but a sledge hammer to kandahar at the moment. what we know about the death of ahmad wali karzai, referred to as awk, he was killed by a bodyguard, a trusted companion, the taliban did claim responsibility saying they've been working with this bodyguard for some time now to infiltrate the head of the council.

awk was influential as well as infamous power broker down south. one thing that the u.s. and nato forces needed him for was the fact he was a stabilizing factor in kandahar. with the deather afraid of the vacuum that's going to leave behind. >> you sat down with an exclusive interview with outgoing ambassador carl eikenberry. what did you learn from him? you spoke to him before this assassination. tell us about it. >> reporter: that's right. we spoke to him yesterday, the outgoing u.s. ambassador sit down with an exclusive interview with nbc news and talked about his time in afghanistan. he spent five of the last ten years in the country here, two years as ambassador and two deployments as a commanding general and the ambassador had to say is that afghanistan has come a very long way. but he says the u.s. will not meet its 2014 deadline unless

they take care of the sanctuary across the border in pakistan. >> until the problem of insurgent and terror sanctuary in pakistan is effectively addressed and that can be addressed through military means. it can be addressed through political means or a combinations there of which is very much of our approach. until that problem has been satisfactorily addressed, then our enterprise in afghanistan and the long-term stability of afghanistan remains at risk. they look across the border into pakistan and see sanctuary there. they see enemy capability there. they see enemy leaders that are there that are not being hit right now. so their question is, why do we need 100,000 american troops inside of afghanistan when we know that a very big part of this problem sits inside of pakistan?

>> reporter: a grim reality right there from the ambassador as he leaves afghanistan where he says that he will leave a part of his heart behind. chuck? >> all right. atia in kabul. thanks very much. >> those u.s. drone attacks in afghanistan have killed 45 militants in the last 24 hours. it comes a day after washington announced it would suspend $800 million worth of aid to the country further straining ties between our uneasy ally. joining me now, invited you on because i want to talk about the energy summit you're a part of tomorrow. wali karzai, explain the strategic importance he played for the united states and nato. >> well, it was a controversial figure. a lot of people thought he was corrupt, that he was part of all that was wrong in terms of afghanistan, corrupt dealing

drugs, none of it could ever be proven. but it was a symbol in some sense of corruption. on the other hand he was effective and influential and kandahar, a place where our military was active against the taliban. we had made progress, have made progress, now want to transition. of course, he was part of that transition and when you're trying to do a transition, any source of instability is a problem. and his death is of course that. >> wanting to take credit for this, is their operation so sophisticated that they could sustain what essentially is a spy program, intelligence program of having abodyguard and getting him to infiltrate over time? it signals a level of sophistication some of us didn't realize they have. >> this is a complicated place and a lot of people are for rent and for hire in terms of money.

there is the idealogical piece of it and it is a problem of penetration when everyone has large numbers of body guards and you don't really know where all of them come from. they try to do it out of tribe and other protections but there is a risk of infiltration. and it is part of the environment there of doing business in afghanistan. >> president karzai, to be blunt, not saying you've said this but others have said it to me, is somewhat paranoid all the time about lots of things sometimes, whether a relationship with pakistan or the united states. this could have an effect on him that could have unintended sequences. >> he's obviously under a lot of pressure. there have been problems with the united states. unfortunately we gave him grounds to be concerned about whether he really had our support. on the other hand, we need him to do things in order to transition to afghanistan. we need him to cooperate to get a free and fair election for example in 2014 when his term is

up. there needs to be more political reform. there needs to be more accountability in the government. so we're putting a lot of pressure on him. in some sense rightly because there are things he needs to do to improve the situation in afghanistan. and of course, as ambassador eikenberry talked about. he has the concern that there is a safe haven in pakistan that is making the stabilization of afghanistan much more difficult. >> all right. i want to move to the energy summit, what's being called energy security. and you're going to be participating in a simulation of basically of an event that affects the oil markets tied to our own financial security and oil security, all of these things. explain the intention of what you're hoping to do with the education program, this is not for people that are watching but for people in capitol hill, right? >> i think the people who put this game together want to make the point that the energy

markets, the petroleum market is very tight. this is very little spare capacity. so a terrorist incident that takes for example 2 million barrels off line will cause a major spike in oil prices. given the fragility of our economy, that will have a major ripple effect in our economy. the second part of the game makes the point that a lot of the oil for the world market comes from countries like iran, libya, venezuela, not friends of the united states. >> not only not friends but unstable countrieses. >> exactly. >> they could be in a situation like libya tomorrow? >> a lot of oil from the world comes from unstable countries or countries not friends of the united states. if there is a disruption of supply and an oil spike it gives countries like iran and venezuela enormous leverage over

the oil markets and over us. >> this is calling it energy security, this is a way to maybe get comprehensive energy reform that could maybe unite environmentalists and national security hawks worried about -- worried about sending too many trips overseas all the time, to actually come together if you call it under the umbrella of security, right? >> the problem is petroleum. petroleum is a problem because the carbon in terms of environments. it's a problem of our dependance. petroleum is what our transportation system lives on. and i think one of the messages of the sponsors of the summit is what we need to do is to move in directions, for example, he electric vehicles so that rather than this enormous dependence on petroleum we can move to electricity which we can generate in a lot of different ways. less than 1% is generated by petroleum. if you want to get off the oil

dependence, there are a lot of ways to do it. that's what this summit will explore. >> stephen hadley, thanks for sharing this morning. >> our daily rundown political round table, if it's tuesday round table it's next. we have lots of stuff to talk about. michele bachmann already losing ground in iowa. not so far, only if a bunch of noncandidates run and new controversy surrounding her husband and of course what's next in the debt talks. first, white house soup of the day. i've already had people asking, it's going to be split pea, right? no it's gazpacho, it's not the heat, it's the debt ceiling. [ male announcer ] introducing the ultimate business phone --

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warni warning republicans not to cave in on the debt ceiling. >> president obama and the democrats want to raise the debt limit even higher, spending even more, but what will republicans do? cave in or show some spine? we already have one party committed to bigger government. we don't need another. >> the editor of the rothenberg political report and peggy nance bringing in a conservative perspective and charlie cook, nbc news political analyst. charlie, you wrote about the debt ceiling today and wrote about the issues where the two bases are basically somehow dominating this conversation and you're wondering where's the radical middle. >> i think the folks in the middle that are for some kind of reasonable compromise have just checked out. they are watching appalled disgusted and very quiet. so now with republicans pulling any revenue off the table,

democrats are going to put entitlements off the table and we'll end up with a very, very small deal. >> let me ask you this. the conservative movement not only won the 2010 election but you can argue they are winning the national debate. the debate is about cuts and deficit reduction. a democratic president is putting entitlements on the table. why aren't more republicans saying, welcome and saying let's go, yes, we we'll give you tax hikes, everybody should have to contribute to the debt problem? >> you've said it because not only is he putting entitlements on the table but won't take off tax hikes. >> but what's wrong with -- >> because just seven months ago republicans ran on the platform of lower taxes and cutting spending. and they were rewarded with the ga gavel in the house of representatives, if they their turn backs now, it's political

suicide, a huge mistake. >> stu, this is what apparently john boehner learned almost the hard way over the weekend. >> the view of republicans and particularly house republicans is that their party has been giving not only for the last two years or five years but last 80 years that they have allowed the democrats to grow government, the philosophical -- >> and roll them on the end at the deals, right? >> absolutely. >> don't let them do that to me again. i'm going, wow. >> this is like the family that has all this scar tissue over the years and they are trying to even the score now. you said the president has put entitlements on the table. i'm not sure a single person can bring about a deal here. john boehner tried to put stuff on table too. i think republicans are skeptical about what democrats deliver. >> i remember that election about being health care and to a lesser extent climate change and housy economy. i think we've redefined what the election is about. >> in the primaries it was about

the debt. >> but what we've done now it's just an anti-tax party. >> is there -- >> that's not true. >> is it going to take being punished at the polls? you just pointed out in many ways this position was rewarded. so why back off now? >> i hope they don't. i hope they hold firm, encourage tax cuts and a balanced budget amendment which 47 senators came out, all in favor of recently. we had olympia snowe and jim demint. always the tax hikes show up right on time but the tax cuts scheduled for down the road rarely show up. >> you don't believe there would be a default if the republicans don't compromise. >> i don't think it has to be a default. i think they can pay the debt. >> that's part of the problem here. the idea that the republicans

can say no, no. things will work out okay. a lot of other people don't think that's the case. >> all right. hang in there a minute. we ask since 1832, there have only been two status quo presidential elections which every state with 10 or more electoral votes stayed in the same red/blue column from the previous election. a lot of you got 2004. one person got 1908 when teddy roosevelt made way said may have been the biggest mistake of his li life. ♪ to help with the mortgage or whatever we need!

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>>. >> let's bring back our panel, stu, charlie and penny. my apologies for saying a

different name. it's the first iowa poll you believe in. it's the second. the president's pollster has a poll. yesterday we showed you michele bachmann ahead in the field 25%. romney's 21 pst. paul at 6%, gingrich at 4%. they did a second ballot test. guess who popped? not sarah palin, but chris christie. >> the shiny object vote. whoever is new and different and you add in some exciting name and boy, a lot of people pop. i don't think first term governors can run for president. it's very difficult. >> i remember the last one that

tried. >> the thing is, a first-term senator, if a senator doesn't show up for work, who knows, who cares? he would be a strong governor state like new jersey, you can't leave for two years. >> can the conservative movement rally around chris christie who is not necessarily a down and down, died in the wool social conservative? >> that's why he works for independents and social conservatives because he is a social conservative. he cut funding twice for planned parenthood. >> you can rally around him? >> what i know about him so far. the american people are ready for a president who tells them the truth. i like that he tells it straight. >> authenticity. >> they love his style. he is one of those anti-obama republicans. he doesn't look like a president or sound like one. >> wait until you start running. a lot different. i don't have time for shameless plugs. i'll plug you next time you're on. we'll see you back here tomorrow.

you know what comes next, "chris jansing and company." storms roll through the northern plains. the heat is the big story. it's hot and very humid around the country. heat indexes above 100 in new york city. detroit, chicago, you get a break. cooler air for you. hot and steamy in areas like phoenix.